Selecting a large, strong box, she had it carried into the garret.
"There, mother," she said, "now you can pack in this box all the old lumber of all sorts which you want to carry.

And, if this box isn't large enough, you shall have two more.

Don't tire yourself out: there's plenty of time; and, if you don't get it all packed by the time I am done, I can help you." Then Mercy went downstairs feeling half-guilty, as one does when one has practised a subterfuge on a child.
How many times that poor old woman packed and unpacked that box, nobody could dream.

All day long she trotted up and down, up and down; ransacking closets, chests, barrels; sorting and resorting, and forgetting as fast as she sorted.

Now and then she would come across something which would rouse an electric chain of memories in the dim chambers of her old, worn-out brain, and she would sit motionless for a long time on the garret floor, in a sort of trance.